7:6-27 Here is an affecting example of the danger of youthful lusts. It is a history or a parable of the most instructive kind. Will any one dare to venture on temptations that lead to impurity, after Solomon has set before his eyes in so lively and plain a manner, the danger of even going near them? Then is he as the man who would dance on the edge of a lofty rock, when he has just seen another fall headlong from the same place. The misery of self-ruined sinners began in disregard to God's blessed commands. We ought daily to pray that we may be kept from running into temptation, else we invite the enemies of our souls to spread snares for us. Ever avoid the neighbourhood of vice. Beware of sins which are said to be pleasant sins. They are the more dangerous, because they most easily gain the heart, and close it against repentance. Do nothing till thou hast well considered the end of it. Were a man to live as long as Methuselah, and to spend all his days in the highest delights sin can offer, one hour of the anguish and tribulation that must follow, would far outweigh them.The house of the harlot is now likened to a field of battle strewn with the corpses of the many slain. 26, 27. Even the mightiest fail to resist her deathly allurements. To hell; or; to the grave; for the word is used in both senses; and this sense seems better to agree both with the foregoing and following words. Although, without repentance, hell will certainly be their portion, and their first death will be followed by the second.

Her house is the way to hell,.... Or "ways" (p); the broad highway to it; either to the grave, as "sheol" often signifies; or to hell itself, the place of the damned: to go into her house, and commit wickedness with her, is to take a step to destruction, a large stride towards hell; and, if grace prevent not, will bring a man thither. Who would go into such a house, and much less dwell there, which is the very suburbs of hell?

going down to the chambers of death; to enter her chamber, to step into her bed, howsoever decked and adorned, entertaining and inviting it is, not only leads to the chambers of the grave, as the Targum; but to the lowest and innermost parts of hell; the apartments of the second death, the lot of all unclean and idolatrous persons, without repentance and faith. The Phoenicians called Pluto, the god of hell, by the name of Moth (q), a word similar to this used here; and so those chambers are no other than the chambers of hell. Plautus (r) also calls the gate of a whore's house the gate of hell; which agrees with the first clause of the verse.

(p) "viae", Pagninus, Montanus, Junius & Tremellius, Piscator, &c. (q) Sanchoniatho apud Euseb. Praepar. Evangel. l. 1. p. 38. (r) "Januam hane orci", Bacchides, Acts 3. Sc. 1. v. 1.

Her house is the way to hell, going down to the chambers of death.